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Making your own stock or broth is easy (although not quick). After cooking whole chicken or turkey (like at Thanksgiving), save the left over bones to make stock later. Homemade stock can be used in place of store bought chicken broth, tastes great, and doesn't contain any MSG or additives.

You'll need a large pot - I used a 12 quart Multi-Pot but any large pot will work. I wouldn't try it in a pot with a capacity smaller than 8 quarts because you'll need enough room for the poultry, vegetables, and water to cover.

Take the remains of a chicken or turkey after it's been carved and break it into pieces so it will fit in your pot. Alternatively, you can use the bones from chicken parts or a pack of chicken wings. To season the stock, wash and rough cut four carrots, four celery ribs, and one onion. Throw these into the stock pot with the poultry and add two peeled garlic cloves, 2 bay leaves, about fifteen whole peppercorns, two whole cloves, 1 tsp. ground thyme, and 1 tsp. ground parsley.[IMG]

Since I used a multi-pot, I had the luxury of placing the colander insert into the pot and then adding all the solid ingredients. This is a nice arrangement because after I'm done with the stock, I can easily remove all the solids by lifting out the colander insert. The steamer basket can also be placed ontop to help keep all the solids under water.

Pour in enough drinking water to cover the solids by at least an inch, about 2 gallons. Over high heat, bring the water to a simmer (about 190°F or 88°C) while being careful not to let it come to a full boil. As anyone who has watched Tampopo knows, bringing the stock to a full boil will break up the solids into particulate matter that clouds the liquid. We want to cook the stock slowly and gently. A simmer is almost as hot as a rolling boil, but the liquid is just barely bubbling. The bubbles should be forming slowly and steadily. If no bubbles form, then the water is not hot enough; but if bubbles begin to rise rapidly, the water is too hot. Once the water begins to simmer, fiddle with your heat settings until it maintains the simmer.

Continue to simmer the stock for at least four hours, checking on the water level every thirty minutes or so. If the water level has dropped and solids are beginning to be exposed, boil some water separately and pour it into the stock until the water level has risen beyond the solids again.

When you get tired of simmering (after four or more hours), it's time to drain the solids from the stock. Since I used a multi-pot, I just carefully lifted up the collander and tilted it to drain. If you're not using a multipot, you can pour the stock into another pot with a large collander placed over it. Make sure the other pot is large enough to hold the liquid (about two quarts) or use multiple receiving pots. [IMG]

To remove smaller particles in the stock, pour the liquid through a fine mesh sieve placed over a large pot. I placed my 8-quart pot in the kitchen sink on a layer of ice. This means I won't have to carry around a nearly full container filled with simmering stock.[IMG]

Add more ice around the pot to help chill the stock quickly. I also recommend a tip from Alton Brown: place a bottle or two of ice in the middle of the stock to chill inside out as well as outside in. To do this, simply take a water bottle and fill it 60-70% full of water and freeze.[IMG]

Once the stock is chilled to around 50°F (10°C) (about 1-1/2 hour), move the stock to the refrigerator to finish chilling. The stock will last for about a week in the fridge. If two gallons of stock is too much for you to consume in a week (which is probably true for most families), you can freeze the stock and it should maintain taste and quality for about three months.

You might notice that after making stock, the bones have become extremely brittle. That's because the long simmer has extracted most of the collagen from the bones (as well as nutrients like niacin, fiboflavin, and calcium) which reduces the structural integrity of the bone. Some chef's advocate squeezing every last bit of collagen out of the bones, but I find that after four hours of simmering enough flavor (from the vegetables and bones) and thickening agent (the collagen turns into gelatin in the simmering water) has permeated the broth that it is unnecessary to extract all the collagen.

Sir, your site is fantastic, and this was another smashing article. But I was wondering, I have heard that true stock must be made using uncooked bone, so that the gelatin is preserved, and that using cooked meat is for broths. IIRC this was from one of Tom Colicchio’s “Think Like a Chef “. Am I off on this?

It is true that raw bones have more collagen that turns into gelatin when cooked, but I find that there is more than enough collogen left in the bones of my roasted turkey to produce a fine stock. After refrigerating the stock, there was enough gelatin that it set. If your stock doesn't have high enough concentration of gelatin, just boil it down to half volume and that should do it.

It was interesting to see that you use ice for chilling stock before refrigerating. We used to use an electric fan which did a surprisingly good job, but now we fill our sink with cold water to just shy of the buoyancy level of the pot and then throw in a couple of freezer packs. We have lots of these around because we're always ordering stuff from d'Artagnan.

As for the stock/broth questions: yes, you can used cooked meats to make stock. In fact, Madeleine Kamman has you roast or brown the veal bones and vegetables when making veal stock, and her recipe makes an exquisite golden stock. She is very big on keeping your stock either hot or cold, and never "just sitting".

Personally I do bring it to the boil, but keep an eagle eye on it and immediately skim the scum off the top. Use a mesh skimmer (I got my fantastic one in Muji) and keep plunging it into cold water, which helps it attract the scum. I also find it necessary to skim the fat off the top once it's chilled overnight.

As well as freezing it in plastic containers, I also pour it into freezer bags. Very handy for adding a little bit of stock to stirfries etc without having to defrost a whole pint.

Last Xmas I made a Turducken, (for 3 people...) I had my butcher bone the birds for me, and insisted on him giving me the bones. (he looked odly at me) so I had a carrier bag full of mixed bird bones.
I made them into broth, which I mostly froze. I cooked the bones first.
Whenever they have a pig roast at the summer fete I try to scrounge a few bones too. Its shocking the amount of meat wasted during one of these costly events.

I think you get the best results by a) browning one or two of the chicken pieces used first (makes a richer flavored broth) b) adding a small amount of vinegar to the water (helps extract calcium & collagen from the bones) and c)adding a couple of sliced mushrooms, if available--it really improves flavor.

I actually remove the solids, separate out the large bones, split them and put them back in for an hour or so to get all the flavor from the marrow.

Broth will keep almost indefinitely in the fridge if you re-boil it for about ten minutes every 3-4 days. Also, don't remove the layer of congealed fat until you're ready to use the broth--the fat helps keep bacteria out and prevents flavor creep from other items in the fridge.

Personally I prefer to boil it down to a gelee and freeze it in cubes.

Great information! Simple things like this are fading away from our active, modern lifestyles, and it's critical that we wake up and realize what a nutritious powerhouse soup stock really is. This is one of the only ways to get the nutrients needed to keep our own bones & joints healthy!

Might want to consider what that hot water is leeching from the plastic bottles though! It's worth your time to research plastics -- ban them along with hydrogenation!

I notice Alton brown and you suggest cooling using a bed of ice. Any engineer, at least mechanical engineer, knows this is a poor mechanism for heat transfer. Immersion in a liquid is better because of more surface contact. One only needs to compare a person sitting on a bed of ice versus a person jumping into a lake of 50 degree water. Which is going to cause hypothermia faster? A no brainer for those who live in the frigid north, brrrrr.

With Thanksgiving over with, and thawed organic turkey's on sale for 0.49 cents a pound, I decided to buy 60 lbs worth, cook up the meat, freeze it, give some away, and refrigerate the rest for soups, casseroles, and yeastie-roll-sandwiches for the next 2 weeks!

That left me with lotsa, lotsa, lotsa, bones, skin, necks, and residual meat.... so I decided to make stock!!!

I basically followed this recipe as is, though I cooked it for 6 hours, and refrigerated it over-night, so I could do a final skimming of the fat.... ala Alton Brown suggestion.

I bagged much of it and froze it, and saved some for turkey soup.

I think the whole idea of hanging over your stove and "skimming the scum" every 30, 60, or whatever minutes is a big waste of time. Just skim it once, and know that the final skimming of fat (after it sits overnight in the fridge), will clean it up swell!

I found the whole process to be very relaxed, and almost "zen-like". I basically did this on a lazy Sunday afternoon whilst drinking a 6-pack and watching football (GO SEAHAWKS!!!!!... woof...woof...woof!).

All in all, it filled my house with nice aroma's, gave me lots of pleasure (and yummy stock), and something to do whilst watching TV.

Once the stock is chilled to around 50°F (10°C) (about 1-1/2 hour), move the stock to the refrigerator to finish chilling.

was wondering: why not place the stock in the fridge after it has cooled down just a bit? Why wait so long (1 to 1/2 hrs) to put in the fridge? Will the stock be adversely affected if I just put it in the fridge still warm??

was wondering: why not place the stock in the fridge after it has cooled down just a bit? Why wait so long (1 to 1/2 hrs) to put in the fridge? Will the stock be adversely affected if I just put it in the fridge still warm??

The reason why you cool it down as much as you can and as quickly as possible before putting it in the fridge is because otherwise you'll heat up the interior of the fridge. Two gallons of stock at a relatively high temperature contains a lot of kinetic energy. The air circulating in the refrigerator will take longer to cool the stock than if you placed the stockpot in a cold water bath. During this time, you'll also be heating up all the food in your refrigerator because most likely, your fridge can't keep up with the amount of heat introduced by the stock. In some cases, you may even break your fridge as it runs full power for a longer duration than the manufacturer intended.